Gov. Scott Walker says he will actively push to get a proposed arts center in Eau Claire built.

The Confluence Project would include a performing arts center, student housing and retail space. Walker has said before that he was a fan of the public-private approach to planning and funding the nearly $80 million project but now he says he’ll play a more active role to get it built.

“It’s much bigger than just the (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) campus,” Walker said. “It’s obviously the benefit of the arts center and the economic development and the housing development and all of the other things that come with that – we want to be a player in that and leverage that.”

Developers want $25 million from the UW System, as UW-Eau Claire will partially own the center. Walker, however, said that it might be easier to get dollars to the Confluence through state grants that require local contributions.

“We’ve done that in much smaller dollar amounts for some other projects around the state in the last couple of budgets, and this is something we’d look at,” Walker said.

Ben Richgruber of the Eau Claire Regional Arts Council said he’ll defer to Walker on state funding, but that just having the governor as a vocal supporter is a big help.

“Right now the big local push is all about fundraising, and I think that the more people see support from across the state … It worked at the city level, it worked at the county level and now that the governor is on board,” Richgruber said. “I think that will help with the fundraising efforts as well.”

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